© 2022 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
Tyler Mitchell needs me like he needs another hole in the head, but when I heard him speak in an interview on television, I was taken by his youth and the power of his work, a power which comes … Continue reading
© 2022 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
… The trees are in their autumn beauty, The woodland paths are dry, Under the October twilight the water Mirrors a still sky; Upon the brimming water among the stones Are nine-and-fifty swans. The nineteenth autumn has come upon … Continue reading
© 2022 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
When I was becoming an adolescent, as I felt my body change and get hairier it wasn’t odd to think that I could be a werewolf or a vampire. Saturdays I stayed up late to watch the classic horror movie … Continue reading
© 2022 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
“When I think of Skulls….I do not think of someone who is dead,but rather I think of someone who was alive.The Skull representing not death but life.Stacks of skulls, stacks of lives.The grinning Skull smiles at us all.Live now while … Continue reading
© 2022 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
Anyone who knows me knows I love the American artist, Charles Burchfield, and one thing I love about him is that even in the sunlight, he will put some gloom, and in that little bit of gloom, there is always … Continue reading
© 2022 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
I love reading Basil King’s poetic histories because they connect time and place and people in unexpected ways that I find delightful. In Basil’s new collection, There Are No Ghosts, There Are Portraits, the first piece, “Soutine, Modigliani, Chagall,” makes … Continue reading
© 2022 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
In 1981, Helikon Press under the direction of its publisher, William Leo Coakley, published Talbot Road, a poem by Thom Gunn. Recently, Mr. Coakley gave me a copy of this chapbook that is signed by the poet himself. I’ve … Continue reading
© 2022 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
On Thursday, I took the subway to the Upper West Side to record the poet and publisher, William Leo Coakley—you can call him Willie—at his apartment on 71st Street where he has lived (and loved) since 1961. As I set … Continue reading
© 2022 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
“One of the marvels of the world is the sight of a soul in prison holding the keys in its hand.” Rumi The poet Scott Hightower learned that Life goes on after his partner of forty-one years suddenly died … Continue reading
© 2022 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
I began reading Jaime Manrique’s Tarzan My Body Christopher Columbus over the summer, but because of some eye trouble, my watery itching eyes made it difficult to read. I persevered, however, because the poems valen la pena. As the … Continue reading
© 2022 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
During the pandemic, the poet Daisy Fried was living in Philadelphia with her husband who was dying of a debilitating disease. Without much help from the outside, during breaks from the caring, Daisy began to read and translate Charles Baudelaire, … Continue reading
© 2022 Don Yorty. All rights reserved.
After a very long period of writer’s block in 1973, I wrote a series of poems that I called the prologue. I was twenty-four. When the Bangladeshi writer and social activist, Mir Rabi, asked if he could put a translation … Continue reading